Application of the testing and spacing effects to name learning

Four experiments investigated the effects of testing and spacing on the learning of face‐name stimulus‐response pairs. Experiments 1a and 1b compared the recall of names following intervening tests versus additional study opportunities and found that testing produced better retention of names. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the effects of repeated tests versus study for massed, uniform, or expanded spacing intervals. Tested names were better retained than studied names, spaced names were better retained than massed names, and memory was best for items tested at spaced intervals. Contrary to past findings, expanded schedules did not yield better memory than uniform schedules in either experiment. Theoretical implications for the testing and spacing effects are discussed, along with effective name‐learning techniques based on these principles. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Dominance Theory: Its Agenda and Method

The theory has been misconstrued in four primary ways, which are often expressed as the claims of psychological reductionism, conceptual redundancy, biological reductionism, and hierarchy justification. This paper addresses these claims and suggests how social dominance theory builds on and moves beyond social identity theory and system justification theory.     

Ethnic‐Related Curricula and Intergroup Attitudes in College: Movement Toward and Away From the In‐Group1

Using a 5‐year longitudinal study, we investigated the long‐term effects of courses with ethnic studies content and courses with Latino or Black professors on university students' intergroup attitudes. We found that these curricular variables significantly affected the intergroup attitudes of students beyond pre‐existing differences in attitudes and beyond other curriculum variables. As expected, we found differences between ethnic groups: White students showed movement toward other groups as a result of these curricular factors, whereas Latino and African American students showed both increased tolerance toward other groups and movement toward the in‐group. The results are discussed in terms of group status differences between the dominant White majority and the stigmatized Latino and Black minority groups.     

Testing beyond words: Using tests to enhance visuospatial map learning

Psychological research shows that learning can be powerfully enhanced through testing, but this finding has so far been confined to memory tasks requiring verbal responses. We explored whether testing can enhance learning of visuospatial information in maps. Fifty subjects each studied two maps, one through conventional study, and the other through computer-prompted tests. For the tests, the subjects were repeatedly presented with the same map with one feature deleted (e.g., a road or a river), and they tried to covertly recall the missing feature and its location. Subjects’ map drawings after 30 min were significantly better for maps learned through tests in comparison with maps learned through the same amount of time devoted to conventional study. These results suggest that the testing effect is not limited to the types of memory that require discrete, verbal responses, and that utilizing covert retrievals may allow the effect to be extended to a variety of complex, nonverbal learning tasks.     

Enhancing learning and retarding forgetting: Choices and consequences

Our research on learning enhancement has been focusing on the consequences for learning and forgetting of some of the more obvious and concrete choices that arise in instruction, including questions such as these: How does spacing of practice affect retention of information over significant retention intervals (up to 1 year)? Do spacing effects generalize beyond recall of verbal materials? Is feedback needed to promote learning, and must it be immediate? Although retrieval practice has been found to enhance learning in comparison with additional study, does it actually reduce the rate of forgetting? Can retrieval practice effects be extended to nonverbal materials? We suggest that as we begin to find answers to these questions, it should become possible for cognitive psychology to offer nonobvious advice that can be applied in a variety of instructional contexts to facilitate learning and reduce forgetting.     

Body in Mind: The Role of Embodied Cognition in Self-Regulation

We review a growing body of literature that evidences the reciprocal relationship between body and mind, known as embodied cognition. We argue that an embodied mind may serve a functional purpose, aiding in self-regulatory processes. Specifically, we suggest that embodied cognition assists in self-regulation by increasing signal strength, encouraging appropriate goal-relevant action, and incorporating situational constraints to cue appropriate information processing styles. Furthermore, we propose that affect serves as the link between an embodied mind and self-regulatory action. Finally, we situate this research in debates on theories of mind, and we advocate for a highly interactive system that integrates information across modalities.     

A Longitudinal Test of the Model of Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition

Using data from a longitudinal study of college students, this study assessed the relationships among the threat perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety, the ideological motives of system justification and social dominance orientation (SDO), and political conservatism. Those who had higher perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety at the end of their first year of college showed higher levels of system justification and SDO at the end of their second and third years of college, controlling for precollege expressions of each variable. Higher levels of these two ideological motives at the end of students' second and third years of college were associated with more politically conservative attitudes at the end of students' fourth year of college, again controlling for precollege expressions. These longitudinal results are discussed in terms of a model of political conservatism as motivated social cognition.     

External focus of attention improves performance in a speeded aiming task

Athletic skills are often executed better when learners focus attention externally (e.g., on the trajectory of the ball after a tennis serve), rather than internally (e.g., on the position of their arm) (e.g., Wulf, 2007a). The current study explored the effects of attention focus on learning of speeded responses, and examined whether these benefits hold for retention and transfer. Participants performed a computerized speeded aiming task while focusing on the direction of the cursor (external focus) versus the direction in which their hand moved the mouse (internal focus). One week later, half of the participants performed the same task again (retention), and half performed the task under conditions in which the mouse movements were changed (transfer). Relative to internal focus, external focus led to faster acquisition and better maintenance of speeded responses over the retention interval.